Twenty Tips on Motivating Students

Few teachers would deny that motivated students are easier to teach, or that students who are
interested in learning do, in fact, learn more. So how do teachers motivate their students? Here are
some practiced, tried-and true strategies to get (and keep) your students interested in learning.

Know your students' names and use their names as often as possible.

Plan for every class; never try to wing it.

Pay attention to the strengths and limitations of each of your students. Reward their strengths and
strengthen their weaknesses.

If possible, set your room in a U-shape to encourage interaction among students.

Vary your instructional strategies; use lectures, demonstrations, discussions, case studies, groups, and
more.

Review the learning objectives with your students. Be sure students know what they are expected to
learn, do, know, etc.

Move around the room as you teach.

Make your classes relevant. Be sure students see how the content relates to them and the world around
them.

Be expressive. Smile.

Put some excitement into your speech; vary your pitch, volume and rate.

Give lots of examples.

Encourage students to share their ideas and comments, even if they are incorrect. You'll never know
what students don't understand unless you ask them.

Maintain eye contact and move toward your students as you interact with them. Nod your head to show
that you are listening to them.

Provide opportunities for students to speak to the class.

Be available before class starts, during break, and after class to visit with students.

Return assignments and tests to students as soon as reasonably possible. Provide constructive feedback.

Be consistent in your treatment of students.

Make sure that your exams are current, valid, and reliable. Tie your assessment to your course
objectives.

Plan around 15-20 minute cycles. Students have difficulty maintaining attention after a longer period of
time.

Involve your students in your teaching. Ask for feedback.

http://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/current/teaching/motivating

How to Motivate Students In Your Classroom or School

1. Praise Students in Ways Big and Small

Recognize work in class, display good work in the classroom and send positive notes home to
parents, hold weekly awards in your classroom, organize academic pep rallies to honor the
honor roll, and even sponsor a Teacher Shoutout section in the student newspaper to
acknowledge student’s hard work. 

2. Expect Excellence

Set high, yet realistic expectations. Make sure to voice those expectations. Set short terms
goals and celebrate when they are achieved.

3. Spread Excitement Like a Virus

Show your enthusiasm in the subject and use appropriate, concrete and understandable
examples to help students grasp it. For example, I love alliteration. Before I explain the concept
to students, we “improv” subjects they’re interested in. After learning about alliteration, they
brainstorm alliterative titles for their chosen subjects. 

4. How to Motivate Students: Mix It Up

It’s a classic concept and the basis for differentiated instruction, but it needs to be said: using a
variety of teaching methods caters to all types of learners. By doing this in an orderly way, you
can also maintain order in your classroom. In a generic example for daily instruction, journal for
10 minutes to open class; introduce the concept for 15 minutes; discuss/group work for 15
minutes; Q&A or guided work time to finish the class. This way, students know what to expect
everyday and have less opportunity to act up.
5. Assign Classroom Jobs

With students, create a list of jobs for the week. Using the criteria of your choosing, let students
earn the opportunity to pick their classroom jobs for the next week. These jobs can cater to their
interests and skills.

Classroom Job Examples

 Post to the Class blog

 Update Calendar
 Moderate review games
 Pick start of class music
 Watch class pet
 Public relations officer (address people who visit class)
 Standard class jobs like Attendance, Cleaning the boards, putting up chairs, etc.

6. Hand Over Some Control

If students take ownership of what you do in class, then they have less room to complain
(though we all know, it’ll never stop completely). Take an audit of your class, asking what they
enjoy doing, what helps them learn, what they’re excited about after class. Multiple choice might
be the best way to start if you predict a lot of “nothing” or “watch movies” answers.

After reviewing the answers, integrate their ideas into your lessons or guide a brainstorm
session on how these ideas could translate into class. 

On a systematic level, let students choose from elective classes in a collegiate format. Again,
they can tap into their passion and relate to their subject matter if they have a choice. 

7. Open-format Fridays

You can also translate this student empowerment into an incentive program. Students who
attended class all week, completed all assignments and obeyed all classroom rules can vote on
Friday’s activities (lecture, discussion, watching a video, class jeopardy, acting out a scene from
a play or history).

8. Relating Lessons to Students’ Lives

Whether it is budgeting for family Christmas gifts, choosing short stories about your town, tying
in the war of 1812 with Iraq, rapping about ions, or using Pop Culture Printables, students will
care more if they identify themselves or their everyday lives in what they’re learning. 
9. Track Improvement

In those difficult classes, it can feel like a never-ending uphill battle, so try to remind students
that they’ve come a long way. Set achievable, short-term goals, emphasis improvement, keep
self-evaluation forms to fill out and compare throughout the year, or revisit mastered concepts
that they once struggled with to refresh their confidence.

10. Reward Positive Behavior Outside the Classroom

Tie service opportunities, cultural experiences, extracurricular activities into the curriculum for
extra credit or as alternative options on assignments. Have students doing Habitat for Humanity
calculate the angle of the freshly cut board, count the nails in each stair and multiply the number
of stairs to find the total number of nails; write an essay about their experience volunteering or
their how they felt during basketball tryouts; or any other creative option they can come up with.

Motivate Students Beyond the Classroom

The idea of cash incentives is a timely yet controversial topic, so I’d like to look at this attempt to
“buy achievement” through a different lens. It seems people are willing to dump some money
into schools, so let’s come up with better ways to spend it.

11. Plan Dream Field Trips

With your students, brainstorm potential field trips tiered by budget. Cash incentive money can
then be earned toward the field trips for good behavior, performance, etc. The can see their
success in the classroom as they move up from the decent zoo field trip to the good state
capitol day trip to the unbelievable week-long trip to New York City. Even though the reward is
delayed, tracking progress will give students that immediate reward.

12. College Fund Accounts

College dreams motivate athletes; why not adapt the academic track to be just as tangible for
hard-working student? One way is to keep a tally of both the cash value and the potential school
choice each student has earned. As freshman, they see they’ve earned one semester at the
local junior college. By second semester of junior year, they’re going to four-years at State for
half the price. By graduation, watch out free ride to their dream school.

http://www.teachhub.com/top-12-ways-motivate-students